HA Bible Study

1 Corinthians 7:2-9
Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband because of sexual immorality. The husband should meet his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should do the same for her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Don’t refuse to meet each other’s needs unless you both agree for a short period of time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come back together again so that Satan might not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I’m saying this to give you permission; it’s not a command. I wish all people were like me, but each has a particular gift from God: one has this gift, and another has that one.

I’m telling those who are single and widows that it’s good for them to stay single like me. But if they can’t control themselves, they should get married, because it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.

Marriage is a fusion of two or more people to form a new entity, the marriage. People in a marriage have a commitment to each other and to Me to share themselves … not just sex, but personality and hopes.

The “marriage” espoused by Dan Savage is merely a contract and has nothing to do with the marriage given by evolution, that is by Me, to your species.

Two, or more people, can choose to become married without a legal contract. Conversely, the legal contract does not bind people to a true marriage.

I’ve always found the inclusion of the letters of Paul an interesting window into the sausage-making process of religion. They serve as a fine example of how one dedicated but misguided churchman can turn a philosophy of peace, understanding and forgiveness into a set of ironclad rules and punishments.

And it is important to note that the ire of married men who lost relations due to their wives pursuit of purity to ready themselves for the imminent kingdom of Jeebus God Almighty was a leading cause for persecution of xtrians.

Now I’m even more confused. Still no answer to my first question, and now this:

marriage given by evolution

Say again? There are roughly 5,700 species of mammals in the world, never mind the birds, amphibians, plants, bacteria, etc. All but one of these have evolved without any concept of “marriage”. To suggest that evolution and marriage have any relation makes no sense at all, to me.

If I understand God correctly, what he is saying is that if society is going to demand of a man that he be financially responsible for his offspring, then he has a right to demand proof positive that the offspring are his. Hence, the evolution of marriage, a fungible concept.

Pairing, harems, etc are all fund in evolution. These are genetic traits shaped to different degrees either by environment or, in our case by social mores.

Human societies, as far as >I< know, always show some variation of this commitment … though the nature … male dom, female dom, and the polygamous vs monogamous ratios vary.

Unless you believe that these forms of pairing came form some deity other than I, I would suggest you accept the idea that human pairing .. just like that seen on other species .. is a heritable trait caused by speciation and genetics.

Now, what you decide to do ABOUT this trait, that is up to your tribe. All I do is make the rules you folks call science.

among mammals, sex, i.e. pairing, is required for procreation. But sex does not equal marriage. In many species, including ours, the pairing is only for as long as it takes to perform sex, which can hardly be considered marriage, and yet the species reproduce and survive successfully. So yes, I accept that “pairing … is a heritable trait caused by speciation and genetics.”, because it’s required for reproduction. But as that has nothing to do with marriage, I’m still unable to understand what the nature of the connection you’re claiming is.

Paul’s hard enough to deal with without putting most of what he wrote in its original context. He’s somewhat compelling because the sonofagun knew how to write, and threw in more than a small amount of irony and quite a few personal comments about people he knew. It’s quite possible that when he penned the above passage he was thinking about some acquaintance who had a lot of trouble keeping his crank out of places it didn’t belong.

In any case, imperfect though the holy book may be, it’s unlikely that it would be improved by the addition of a whole tome devoted to Zotz wanking off.

@6 What’s this? Another huckster promoting cold fusion? I know for a fact that fusion crap doesn’t work with rabbits. If you put two rabbits in a cage, you’ve got two rabbits in a cage. After a while, there’ll be ten or fifteen rabbits in the cage, but nothing gets fused in there. Trust me on this.

Well since God seems to have punted on my questions, I’ll just leave this final thought:

I would suggest you accept the idea that …

This nicely sums up the problem with theistic religion; someone asks an awkward question, and the answer is “Just trust me, have faith.” Yeah, faith, it’s the go to excuse when you don’t have evidence.

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